Swiss justice minister visits refugees in Poland and Slovakia

Elisabeth Baume-Schneider visits refugee children in Łódź, Poland, on Wednesday Keystone / Ejpd

Justice Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider has visited Poland and Slovakia, two countries that have taken in large numbers of refugees from neighbouring Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.

The trip was an opportunity to understand the direct impact of financial aid from Switzerland, Baume-Schneider said on Thursday.

She visited projects of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, which in particular support Ukrainian children and their families. She was touched by what she experienced, she said. The aid projects concern health, integration and education.

Baume-Schneider exchanged views bilaterally with her counterparts in Poland and Slovakia and expressed “great respect” for them, she said. Both countries had had to take in a very large number of Ukrainian refugees in a very short time, she added.

“They have a different sense of what the war represents,” she said.

In Poland, Baume-Schneider visited a project in Łódź. Switzerland supports the reception, integration and protection of refugee children in host families there through UNICEF, the justice ministry said in a statementExternal link on Thursday. She also held talks with several international organisations and NGOs present in the country.

In Slovakia, she visited the Gabčíkovo Humanitarian Centre, which houses almost 1,000 refugees from Ukraine, including more than 300 children. At the Innovation Centre of the Faculty of Education at Comenius University in Bratislava she learnt about the training given to social workers to enable them to meet the specific needs of refugees.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Poland has registered more than 1.6 million requests for temporary protection from people fleeing Ukraine. Of this number, more than a million are still in Poland. In absolute figures, the country has received the most refugees from Ukraine. Slovakia has granted temporary protection to 101,000 people: In proportion to its population, it is also one of the EU countries that has taken in the most refugees.

Swiss financial support

Switzerland is providing financial support to EU member states particularly affected by the influx of these refugees via the Rapid Response Fund, a financial instrument under the Migration Framework Credit of Switzerland’s second contribution to selected EU Member States.

Switzerland used CHF5 million ($5.5 million) of this fund in 2022 to finance a range of activities by the International Organization for Migration (IOM),

The same amount will be spent this year on a project by UNICEF that is being implemented in six countries, including Poland and Slovakia.